Lukas Classic – Grade II
1 1/8 Mile Dirt Stake Purse $500.000 Open 3 Year Olds And Up.

Before I begin to describe how this race went, I feel the need to bring into question a few things that took place here. Now this is the second time I have asked people to look at a race won by this stable and I can assure you this has nothing to do with the stable or this six-year-old. The trainer is a popular player who always “has a go” and that in itself can bring wins so it is purely coincidence that I am asking you to take a look at another one of their horses in trying to work out how this race engine works.
The first and key ingredient here was pace, a 46 and 2 half mile is just too fast, and it was that pace which killed the chances of at least two horses in this race including the odds-on race favorite. So, the first question to ask is why? Well let’s assume that both Mb Stables and Team 7 Illusions had set their horses to Fast or Lead thus setting up a speed dual which resulted in the suicidal first half mile. In the unlikely event that that was the case, you would then have to assume that All Take was on stalk as he tried too hard to stay close to the leaders who were obviously going to weaken. Was that it, was that what happened here? Three of our top trainers just happened to select three instructions which resulted in a pace which meant none of them could win?
Or was there something else….
Looking at the winner’s race, well, what did we see? The wide gate meant forward or backwards, so did the trainer guess there was going to be a speed battle where the first three favorites would go way too fast and therefore selected trail for their 6-year-old? Or perhaps they just set HL and the horse itself decided to take itself to a tailed off last. Whichever of those it was the early pace was set up for this type of late run, so why was it this one and not any of the others, was he really the only horse on HL or trail or may be even heavy restrain?

If you really want to get into things, then let’s look again at All Take who was third after finding the stalk a tough place to run. If I take you back to the MTH Cup he ran over the same nine furlongs stalking that day in an even faster pace than we saw today, in fact the splits all the way to the mile were faster than today’s race. But did he stalk and weaken? Oh no, that day he ran on best of all and won with a bit in hand and funnily enough had a very similar horse from the same winning trainer that was drawn wide and was taken back only to fly home late for third.

The only way of course to really tell what happened is to ask the trainers what instruction they used. Would they tell us, well probably not, would it explain this race and the end result, again probably not, so maybe in this case ignorance is bliss.

1st Guitars And Cadillac Night Rider Stables Castellano J J

His works were good, and he is certainly having the best year of his life as a six-year-old winning his second grade two race over different trips and on different going. You would think that sort of versatility would make him almost unbeatable in a game where going is so important in race results but in between those two great wins come three pretty average efforts. Consistency aside this has proven a wonderful $15.000 claim for the owner and the way he ran past them today who is to say he doesn’t add a grade one before the end of the year.

2nd Wahpekute Sioux Mb Stables Luzzi L J

It is very tough to try and judge things with an on-pace horse like this. Sometimes another trainer challenges the pace too hard and kills your chances, sometimes the race engine just decides to do something funky. We don’t know which of those things happened today but one of them did and he couldn’t last home after a real speed battle. This does his BC chances no harm at all because each race seems to bring different results and different pace so it could be he gets a soft lead in the BC and wins in a canter.

3rd All Take Alydar Stables Conner T

Decided to stalk the fast pace but once again we saw that today the winner had wings on his hooves and bloused the two favorites away like they were cheap claimers.

4th Face The Lunatic Martyparty Jimenez A

Kept on Ok into fourth but just looks a bit off color recently.

Categories: Grade II, STAKES ARTICLES